By Sarah Chaney

Four years ago, in August 2018, Faiza Shaheen won the parliamentary selection in Chingford and Woodford Green by a near unanimous vote. I remember another member turning to me as we gathered outside the hustings to squeeze into a mass photograph. “We’re so lucky to have her,” he said fervently. “We’re so lucky that she chose us.”

And so we were. A fiercely intelligent and committed woman, with a national profile for combatting inequality and a determination to represent the area she grew up in and oust Iain Duncan Smith once and for all, Faiza Shaheen was the ideal Labour parliamentary candidate. She would not stand anywhere other than the constituency she called home.

She connected with people on the doorstep and recognised their concerns – and she used her local and national platform to address them wherever possible. And Faiza’s inspirational campaign saw Labour Party members flock to Chingford and Woodford Green. In the 2019 general election it was one of just six Conservative-held constituencies that saw an increase in the Labour vote: while Labour’s vote share across the UK declined by 7.8%, in Chingford and Woodford Green it went up by 1.9%, leaving IDS clinging to a majority of just 1,262.

Since then, the Labour Party has changed rather more than Faiza Shaheen herself. In 2022, it was no longer a given that, as the left-wing candidate, she would be selected. And yet she remained by far the best-known (and liked) candidate by voters across the constituency. When I campaigned for Labour in the local council elections in spring of this year, her name was often mentioned on the doorstep by Chingford residents hoping that she would stand again – two and a half years and a global pandemic after the last general election!

Why was Faiza so popular locally? In part, this was because so many people knew her personally. She door-knocked tirelessly for eighteen months in 2018 and 2019, and her ability to connect with people on the doorstep, combined with her awareness of issues facing the local area, generated a loyalty that cannot be underestimated. Faiza remained central to the community after 2019, helping to set up a mutual aid group and working closely with other community activists during the pandemic. Efforts to smear Faiza did not stick because people knew and liked her.

In planning a campaign for Faiza’s selection, we needed to build on a recognition that also saw Faiza supported by members who had never previously got involved in the local party. During branch nomination meetings, these members turned out in large numbers, resulting in Faiza’s nomination by all four branches across the constituency – an unexpectedly decisive result even for those of us aware of her widespread popularity. Our campaign needed to bring these people in and involve them, as well as reaching out to those unaware of the selection due to overactive spam filters or the fact that they had no email address on file with a Labour Party determined to go entirely digital.

The first step was to get the message out there with a mass leaflet drop. The weekend after the shortlist was announced, our leaflet was ready to go – updating members on Faiza’s experiences since the 2019 election – including being headhunted by New York University to spearhead a project working with progressive governments around the world to address inequality and exclusion – as well as background and key messaging. Social media focused on Faiza as a person: we used her first name on all literature, building on the fact that people already knew her.

Our plan was to leaflet the entire CLP that first weekend – miraculously, we completed it in just one day! This allowed us to move quickly to a postal vote operation. The deadline for virtual or postal voting was very short (applications had to be in by 11.59pm the following Wednesday), and many members were confused by the process or had missed the email, so we needed to reach people as quickly as possible.

Phone banking supported the involvement of disabled or older volunteers, who were less able to door knock or leaflet, as well as ensuring that volunteers stayed in and kept cool during the heatwave that hit us mid-way through the campaign. By the deadline for postal voting we had phoned the entire constituency twice, allowing us to get out and about to door knock those we had been unable to get through to by phone.

It worked. On Saturday 23rd July, Faiza Shaheen was selected as the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, receiving over 50% of the vote in the first round: that’s more than all the other candidates combined.

Our campaign was undoubtedly important to this result, especially in reaching members who were unaware of the process before the postal vote deadline. But the biggest single factor was Faiza herself. We knew that if we could persuade enough members to sign up and attend the hustings, then it was highly likely that Faiza would win. Not only does she have the name recognition and popularity to appeal to local people but as a great speaker with a broad understanding of international politics she couldn’t fail to impress at the hustings, regardless of which wing of the party a person identifies with.

Both these things will be central to winning Chingford and Woodford Green for Labour in the next general election.

Sarah Chaney  is a branch organiser in Chingford and Woodford Green Labour Party.